1920s
A01=B. Traven
adventure
adventure quest
america
anarchist
Author_B. Traven
Category=FBC
Category=FFL
Category=FJW
Category=FXP
Category=FYT
classic fiction
classic literature
classics
communist
desperation
eq_bestseller
eq_classics
eq_crime
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
ernest hemingway
forthcoming
george orwell
german
german literature
germany
gold
gold mining
greed
humphrey bogart
john huston
latin america
literary fiction
mexican
mexico
political economy
prospecting
sonora
survival
translated
translation
treasure hunt
western
westerns
Product details
- ISBN 9780241822326
- Weight: 500g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 20 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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'Gold is a very devilish sort of a thing, believe me, boys'
Deep in the wild heart of Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains lies treasure beyond reckoning, just waiting to be found by those who know where to look. Or so believe three Americans – Dobbs, Curtin and Howard – down on their luck and desperate for a way out. Teaming up on a perilous quest to hunt for gold, they soon find their fragile alliance tested, both by a band of local outlaws, and by their own greed. First published in 1927 and made into a classic film by John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a savagely ironic, anarchic cult novel about the price of ambition and the limits of endurance.
Little is known for certain about the life of B. Traven; a prolific writer, he is best known for his beloved adventure novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and the Jungle Novels, a series set during and after the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, with proletarian, anarchist themes. During his lifetime, he was variously (and incorrectly) identified as the son of Kaiser Wilhelm I, or a North German brickmaker, but it is now believed that he was born Moritz Rathenau in Germany in 1882, the illegitimate son of Emil Rathenau, the founder of AEG and Helen Mareck, an Irish actress. He lived for some time as Ret Marut, a merchant seaman, actor, journalist and politician, and left Germany in 1923 after having been sentenced to death for his part in the Bavarian Revolution. He arrived in Mexico in 1924, where he dedicated himself to writing full time. Traven married Rosa Elena Luján in 1957 and died in Mexico City in 1969.
